Ran across this essay by Daniel Donahoo at Wired’s Geek Dad which goes on at length speculating upon the best age to let kids watch ‘Star Wars’. The author apparently has decided that he won’t let his kids watch ‘Star Wars’ until they are 10, and then only under special conditions. My son has not only already seen ‘Star Wars’ but he’s also beaten ‘Star Wars Lego’ on the XBOX 360 — he’s 6.
Donahoo offers up two objections to letting his kids watch ‘Star Wars’ before they are 10, one of which I don’t agree with but can understand, and another which I find unfathomable.
Star Wars Is Violent
The first reason is the obvious violence in ‘Star Wars.’ Parents are all over the place on appropriate levels of sex and violence in movies that they let their kids watch. Frankly, the violence in ‘Star Wars’ is nothing compared to the average Tom and Jerry or Roadrunner cartoon, both of which my son and I both experienced well before we were old enough to read (and the violence in the cartoons is, IMO, much worse since there is no heroic context — its largely violence for its own sake. Still hilarious, but not as meaningful).
I think violence in movies like ‘Star Wars’ is one of those things where as we grow up we start to forget how we perceived and acted upon violent fantasies when we were kids or we discount our experience with the “well, of course, I watched Star Wars when I was seven, but I’m not sure my kid would be ready for it at that age.”
Again, I completely understand concerns about violence, but would really suggest anyone interested in exploring the positive side of fantasy violence read Gerard Jones’ excellent book on the topic, Killing Monsters.
Star Wars Is Special
The second reason Donahoo offers is one that really grates on me but seems to be common across fandom — to his view, Star Wars is a special movie that one has to be ready for in order to appreciate.
. . . we also do our children a disservice if we simply use seminal movies like Star Wars as just another DVD to distract the kids while we go about the business of daily life.
Yet, it feels to me like this is happening.
Now, I may be romanticizing my own pop culture experiences here, but surely movies like the Star Wars Trilogy, Indiana Jones, The Princess Bride and others are core texts in geek development and should be treated differently to your standard Disney or Pixar animation (though Toy Story might reach a new level in the future).
This reminds me of that poll some British newspaper did a few years ago to ask people what the best novel of the 20th century was and Lord of the Rings came out on top. Seriously?
Look, I first saw Star Wars when I was 9 and have seen IV-VI probably more than any other set of movies, but I’d hardly call them great or even seminal movies. Frankly, I find a cartoon series like Ben 10 much more complex and subtle than anything that ever emerged from George Lucas’ lens. Part of that is simply that what Lucas did was so different that he’s been superceded by those kids who were enamored of Star Wars and went into the various arts.
But beyond that, I hope as much as I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy, etc., I hope I never think those are the movies that I need to make certain my kids really engage. Personally I’m awaiting the day I can sit down with my son and watch ‘La Strada’ or ‘The Seventh Seal’.
I’m not entirely sure why, but there seems to be a serious fetishization of geek culture to the point that you do, in fact, have this kind of thing, where a grown man frets about the right moment in his child’s life to expose him or her to Star Wars. I recognized (and quashed) the same impulses in myself a few years ago, when my son was just turning two. I wondered, at the time, how I could make the experience of seeing The Princess Bride, in all its odd loveliness, the same kind of experience I had of finding it–on Channel 50 in Detroit, one Saturday afternoon, accidentally tuning in and being mesmerized by this humbly incredible movie.
And, of course, the answer quickly came that I can’t recreate that experience. I can only expose my children to the stuff that I loved as a child, and hope they find a similar love. But, also, realize with a somewhat heavy heart that they might not quite find that thing that was The Princess Bride or Star Wars to me, or if they do it will be something I find insipid or silly or–at best–which I just can’t see the way they see.
ALL ages for the first 3 movies. I was so young when I saw them, it definitely shaped my imagination as a kid. Violence is what it is…its a battle of good vs evil… and there is nothing wrong with showing them this side of the world at a young age. They will thank you later.
“Frankly, I find a cartoon series like Ben 10 much more complex and subtle than anything that ever emerged from George Lucas’ lens”
this one sentence kills all your credibility